has been remarked, that he never neglected nor overlooked any opportunity of improving his intellectual faculties, or of acquiring esteemed accomplishments." Notwithstanding his numerous occupations at the Bar at home, the onerous duties of his station in India, and his premature death, before he had attained his forty-eighth year, he has left behind many learned works, which illustrate Oriental languages and history, and attest the extent of his labors and acquisitions. Indeed, it might be regarded as impossible, were we not informed of the regular allotment which he made of his time to particular occupations, and his scrupulous adherence to the distribution he had thus made. The moral character of this eminent man was no less exemplary. It is the testimony of one of his contemporaries: "He had more virtues and less faults than I ever yet knew in any human being; and the goodness of his head, admirable as it was, was exceeded by that of his heart." His own measure of true greatness, humanly speaking, he has left behind him in very emphatic

words: "If I am asked, who is the greatest

man? I answer, the best.

And if I am re

quired to say, who is the

best? I reply, he

that has deserved most of his fellow-creatures."1

This department of English literature has been recently much enriched by the labors of the present Lord High Chancellor of England, Lord Campbell. In America we have a few

1 Sir William Jones adds to his other claims upon our admiration that of a decided partiality to the character and fortunes of our American Republics. "The sum of my opinion is," says he, "that while all the American people understand the modern art of war, and learn jurisprudence by serving in rotation upon grand and petit juries, their liberty is secure, and they will certainly flourish most when their public affairs are best administered by their Senate and Councils. I cannot think a monarchy or an oligarchy stronger in substance, whatever they may be in appearance, than a popular government. I shall not die in peace without visiting your United States for a few months before the close of the eighteenth century. May I find wisdom and goodness in your Senate, arms and judicature, which are power, in your commons, and the blessings of wealth and peace equally distributed among all:" 2 Wynne's Eunomus 359, note.

well-written and instructive legal biographies, among which ought especially to be named, Mr. Wheaton's Life of William Pinkney, and Professor Parsons' interesting Memoir of his distinguished father, Chief Justice Parsons. Mr. Binney, at the close of his honored and honorable life, is paying the debt, which every man owes to his profession, in animated, spiritstirring sketches of his great and good contemporaries. How forcibly does this distinguished jurist illustrate the remark of Cicero in his Treatise on Old Age: "Sed videtis, ut senectus non modo languida atque iners non sit, verum etiam sit operosa, et semper agens aliquid et moliens; tale scilicet, quale cujusque studium in superiore vita fuit." What a noble example might be held up, in the life and character of Chief Justice Marshall! His biography, while it will be the record of active patriotism and humanity, will exhibit a course of arduous self-training for the great conflicts of opinion, in which it was his lot afterwards to appear with so much lustre. He had not the usual advantages of a collegiate education.

The war of the Revolution, in which his ardent love of country, and of the principles of ra tional liberty, led him to enlist, and where he distinguished himself in the field, materially interfered with and retarded his earlier professional studies; yet the lofty eminence to which he attained in the opinion of his compatriots, even of those who could not concur in some of his views of the Constitution, the enduring monuments of his greatness in the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, bespeak an intellect of the very first order, mental power naturally vigorous, but brought, by proper exercise, to a degree of strength that made it tower above the general level of educated men. His opinions do not abound in displays of learning. His simplicity, a character so conspicuous in all his writings and actions-that first and highest characteristic of true greatness-led him to say and do just what was necessary and proper to the purpose in hand. Its reflected consequences on his own fame as a scholar, a statesman, or a jurist, seem never once to have occurred to

him. As a judge, the Old World may be fairly challenged to produce his superior. His style is a model-simple and masculine. His reasoning-direct, cogent, demonstrative, advancing with a giant's pace and power, and yet withal so easy evidently to him as to show clearly a mind in the constant habit of such strong efforts. Though he filled for so many years the highest judicial position in this country, how much was his walk like the quiet and unobtrusive step of a private citizen, conscious of heavy responsibilities, and anxious to fulfil them; but unaware that the eyes of a nation -of many nations-were upon him! There was around him none of the glare which dazzles; but he was clothed in that pure mellow light of declining evening, upon which we love to look. Where is the trust to society more sacred, where are duties more important, or consequences more extended, for individual or social weal or woe, than those which attach to the office he held? How apt, and aptly said, is that prayer of Wolsey, when he is informed